Getting Over Charming
by studentofwords
Summary: This is how Cinderella gets over Prince Charming when he leaves her for sixteen-year-old Snow White. Please review!


**A/N- The beginning is almost exactly like my other story's, A Charming Life, except edited and better. After that it breaks away into a new story. So if you like this, you should go check out A Charming Life. Thanks and please review!

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It was the night of her first ball that she met the wonderful, charming, and devilishly handsome Prince Charming.

She was sixteen-years-old, a commoner, and he was twenty-one, a member of the royal family. But the separation in classes didn't faze the good prince, who had a heart of gold and a soft spot for poor, degraded commoners. She promised her heart and her hand in marriage to him on their first "date".

After a night of dancing and flirting, she left him at the stroke of midnight to get back to her evil step-family before they noticed she was missing. In the excitement of meeting the fantastically-wonderful prince, she accidently left behind one of her glass slippers.

The next day as the beautiful, common girl was doing her chores, the gallant prince swooped in on his handsome steed and saved her from her miserable peasant life, to marry her the very next day. Then, the happy and beautiful couple lived happily ever after.

The end.

Whenever I hear this story I laugh. I laugh so hard the teller of the story and all of those near me start to creep away uneasily. Then I laugh so hard at their ignorance of their oh-so charming Prince Charming that tears come to my eyes. That's about the time where my servants start to consider whether or not to send me to the loony-bin.

Why? Well, my name is Cinderella Steppe, formally Princess of Grimm. I was that _tragic_ peasant in the above story. Yeah. I'm that girl with the shoe.

I have recently gone through a divorce with said Prince Charming: that lying, cheating, and horribly charming scoundrel of a man.

And now, I am being forced by my mother (Oh, excuse me: _evil step_-mother. Ha!) to see a therapist. So, I may have burned all of my pictures of Charming. And everything he's ever given me. And I might have made a dartboard of his new fiancé's head. That is, Snow White's head. So? That's not abnormal or anything…

Okay, maybe I do need to see a therapist.

I look up as the door opens to reveal my mother leading in this Ms. Rose lady. She has looks that would make any man drool and is rather petite. She wears a tidy pink suit and holds a briefcase in her right hand. In her left is what appears to be a doll made to look like Charming. Maybe she's the one that needs help, not me, if she stills plays with dolls at age twenty-four…

"Cindy, darling! This is Ms. Rose, the woman I was telling you about. I'm going out shopping for a while, alright? Ta-ta!"

I sigh. Mothers. "Yes, Mother." I turn my attention to the beautiful Ms. Rose. "So, Ms. Rose…"

She smiles. "It's Bella, please. I take it you're Cinderella." She holds her hand out for me to shake. I take it. She has a surprisingly strong grip for such a small woman.

I have a feeling she is the type of woman I try to avoid. Cheery, optimistic about the future, and always looking on the bright side of things. _She probably has the perfect _husband, I think bitterly. I force a smile back.

"It's Cindy, please," I say, mimicking her earlier words. "So, let's get this show on the road. What do I do first?"

She gestures for me to take a seat. "Yes, let's. First of all, I'm sorry about Charming. Some men are simply, and quite honestly, pigs." I raise an eyebrow at her cold tone but say nothing. Now I clear my throat as she is apparently lost in memories. She looks at me sheepishly before continuing, "Oh. Sorry 'bout that. Anyway, how do you feel about the break-up?"

How do I even answer that? Isn't that kind of obvious? "Uh, bad, I guess?"

"Was that a question or a response? You need to be sure of yourself and never question yourself. Now, I'll ask again. How do you feel about the break-up?"

I sigh. I know she won't go away to her perfect life until I give her an answer that she finds satisfactory. This was going to be a very _long_ day. "I feel like Charming ran over me with a truck and took my heart out. I feel like I want to rip what's left of Charming's heart out just so he knows what it feels like." A tear rolls down my cheek as I continue, "But most of all, I hate myself for not seeing this coming. I mean, for him to leave me for that- _child_, I have to have done _something_ wrong. I just don't know what!"

Bella rushes over to my side and consoles me. "Honey, it's not your fault. Don't beat yourself up over this. I know what you're going through, but you just have to remember that it's not even Ms. White's fault. She's just stuck in the middle of all of this."

I brush aside the tears angrily. "How could you _possibly _know what I'm going through? You're a just shrink in a suit being paid by my mother to make me get over my ex who left me for a sixteen-year-old with a pretty face. How could you possibly know?" My voice cracks on the last part.

She doesn't even flinch. Quietly she said, "Because, Cindy, the same thing happened to me last month. I was about to marry my fiancé, Jonathon. Well you probably know him as The Beast. But then, after my love for him had turned him back to a human, while he was out buying me flowers he came across a girl with long golden hair in a tower. He saved her from some wicked witch who had trapped her up there in the first place, and he and this girl, Rapunzel, fell in love."

Now she is crying, and I am crying, while we both try to comfort each other over our lost loves. What a mess. Why did my life have to be so complicated!

Outside the door I hear the housekeeper tell the butler, "Poor dears. So young, but so bitter. Ah, well. Better they learn now while they still have their youth and their looks, than later when all they have is their money and their bitterness. I'm going to go make them some hot cocoa."

While we continue to hold each other and cry our hearts out, the butler replies, "Very true, Hannah. I'll come with you."

A while later, we stop crying and just look at each other as we drink the cocoa Hannah brought up. Then I start laughing. She looks at me confused. "What? What's so funny?"

I smile. "Look at us. You're supposed to help me move on with my life, and here I am cursing the stupidity of males in general. Why can't life just be simple?"

She nods, taking another sip of the rapidly cooling drink. "I wonder who thought up love anyway," she muses.

In unison we say, "Must have been a man." We both grin.

I continue, "Of course it was a man. Only a man would make something so simple into something so complicated. A woman, on the other hand, would have made it simple and kept it that way."

She nods knowingly before declaring, "Well, at least we've learned one thing from this ordeal." I look at her inquisitively. "Love stinks."

"And never trust your man around pretty girls who were raised by seven dwarves or in towers," I add. We laugh.

She raised her cocoa. "To being young, single, and independent." We clink our mugs together.

As we sit in silence and ponder our new single statuses, I can't help but think that maybe the divorce isn't as bad as I thought. From the divorce I have this estate by the sea and a small fortune. Now, I can go back to school. Maybe I'll start my own shoe shop (one without those horribly pinchy glass slippers). I can live my life the way I want to live it, and not the way Charming tells me to live it.

I glance over at Bella. Despite my earlier misgivings, I think somewhere amidst all of the crying, I've made a new friend. And a good friend too. One who knows exactly what I'm going through. One who I can laugh over the stupidity of men with.

In a few years time maybe I'll even find a nice man who will love me for me, and not just my looks, and I can settle down. Maybe this life without Prince Charming won't be so bad after all. Maybe, just maybe…

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**So, how'd you like it? Hate it? Love it? Tell me! Also, do you think I should add more or leave it as a one-shot?**


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